Wednesday, 13 September 2017

Dyson Supersonic | An Honest Review

Before we begin, you should know that, for me, drying my hair is my own personal hell. The dreaded arm ache, the wasted time, the awful noise, and the disappointing results you get when you aren't a whizz with a round brush.

It's so bad, I wash my hair as little as possible - I might be solely responsible for half of Batiste's share price, as my life runs on coffee and dry shampoo, especially since I became a full time working mother of a 1 year old.

But that was before I had an encounter that changed - not my life, let's keep it real here - but certainly my hair for the better. And really, what gives you more of a lift than a good hair day?

After years of resisting getting a Dyson vacuum cleaner, thinking it looked nice, but wouldn't really be all that different from what I was using, I was proved wrong when I did buy one - it was quite simply in a different league (and, tragically, I had never enjoyed cleaning my carpets as much).

It had that beautiful thing where sleek design matches seamlessly with supreme functionality - something both gorgeous to look at and ridiculously good at its job that feels so special.

But could Dyson work that magic in an even more important area of my life - my hair?

Dyson themselves are completely upfront about the fact that, at the £300 mark, their dryer is triple the price of the most expensive other models on the high street. How can they be so confident?

Well, because 5 years of research, £53 million, 600 prototypes and 103 engineers have gone into the creation of a hairdryer that does everything differently - and solves all of the annoyances of traditional units in one smooth stroke.

It's no wonder that they flew off the shelves when they launched, or that publications from consumer tome Which? to beauty bible Vogue universally agree this dryer is a 'game changer'. Because to create the Supersonic, Dyson went above and beyond. Basic hair dryer technology hadn't changed since the 1950s. The Supersonic is here to disrupt, innovate and make our lives easier and our hair healthier in the process.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was when Dyson liked my blog post about their event so much, they chose me as the winner of my very own Supersonic. So here is the lowdown on what makes this dryer a next level beauty innovation.

It gets rid of the dreaded arm ache

My absolute pet hate when it comes to drying her hair is the slow, persistent arm ache I get about two minutes into the whole endeavour.

After all, if I wanted scary, Madonna-esque biceps, I'd be pumping iron in the gym, not trying to balance a heavy hairdryer. The first thing that will strike you about the Dyson Supersonic is that its light.

It still feels substantial, but not unwieldy. That's because, instead of placing the heaviest part - the motor - in the head of the dryer, Dyson have stuck it where you actually hold it - in the handle!

Like all great ideas, it's very obvious, but it hasn't been done before, and that's mainly because the Dyson V9 motor, while being incredibly powerful, is also roughly half the size of the usual hair dryer motor, enabling them to tuck it away in the handle and make the unit much more balanced and comfortable to hold.

You get a 1.8-pound dryer that's easy to hold and work with, and that's what's know as winning!

It cuts down on your blow dry time

Time is another thing in short supply in most people's lives, and I highly doubt that any of us would choose to waste any of it in drying our hair! So a really great thing about the Supersonic is that it can drastically cut your blowdry time.

I choose not to try my hair from soaking wet most of the time, but my damp hair, which is quite thick, was bone dry in around 4 minutes using the Supersonic. That's a huge improvement on the 20 minutes it was taking me before, so I'm over the moon.

It drastically reduces heat damage.

When you think of the amount of time and money some of us spend trying to improve the condition of our hair and reduce the effects of all the heated styling we rely on - deep conditioners, Olaplex treatments, heat defence primers - the argument for a better way of blow drying starts to make a lot of sense.

This is where the Supersonic really comes into its own. It uses an intelligent temperature feedback system that is constantly monitoring the heat of the dryer and cleverly adjusting it, which majorly cuts down on the damage done to hair as you dry it.

Also, as the drying time is so quick, you no longer have to rely on cranking the heat all the way up, as the drying time is super fast even on cooler settings. Over time, this adds up to a progressively healthier head of hair, and in the short term, an immediate reduction in the dreaded frizz.

It gives you smoother, shinier hair

Dyson's Air Multiplier technology and that huge open round barrel amplifies air flow, drying your hair at 105 miles an hour! That high pressure flattens the hair's cuticles, which makes it smoother and shinier.

I'm a very basic bitch when it comes to hair, so my normal drying routine is this: Comb out with a Tangle Teezer, chuck in a heat defence spray or some kind of product, tip my head upside down and randomly blast it all over.

Unfortunately, this 'technique' (if you can even call it that!) is quick and dirty and tends to result in a nice halo of frizz. So I rely on my hair straighteners to smooth it all down again. That's not ideal as it adds more time onto my routine and more heat damage to my dresses.

Now, with the Supersonic, and even with my highly untrained technique, my hair is so smooth afterwards that I actually don't need to straighten it, unless I'm going for a poker straight look. That's really incredible. If someone as cack-handed as me can get these results, the sky is the limit.

Thanks to the Supersonic being so quick and easy to use, I might even try to get fancy and learn how to use round brushes and do the proper blow dry that previous hair dryers have always put me off learning.

You can actually hear yourself think while you use it

On the rare occasions I have time to myself to get ready properly, I love to put my favourite tunes on. But if you're planning on drying your hair, there's no point in that.

Similarly, those of us with sleeping children or other halves or even skittish pets learn to dread the racket drying your hair can make. This is another problem the Dyson Supersonic has cleverly eliminated by a) encasing the motor in rubber, killing the noisy vibrations b) engineering one of the sound frequencies to be beyond human hearing range. People, we are through the looking glass here.

It's a thing of beauty

One of the most impressive things about this hairdryer is that the quality of the performance doesn't mean it isn't pretty.

With a super-sleek, circular compact design, twinkling LED light dashboard and magnetic attachments that snap on and off with a satisfying click, this hairdryer is seriously sophisticated, especially in the white and silver finish (there is also a metallic grey and magenta option).

Everything about the design radiates quality and refinement. Just like they did when elevating the humble vacuum cleaner, Dyson has managed to make a hair dryer into an object of desire. This is a functional object that can also be displayed with pride in your bedroom or on your bathroom counter.

From the moment you open the sleek white box, the experience is one of elegance and quality. The dryer comes with three attachments - a 'smoothing' nozzle for gentle, even airflow, a 'styling concentrator' for precise work and a diffuser for waves, curls and extra volume. There's also a continuous cold shot mode for styling and finishing. You also get a rubber heat protection mat to keep your surfaces safe and a leather hanging loop.

The verdict

There's no getting away from the fact that the Dyson Supersonic is an awesome bit of kit, but also an incredibly expensive one. The benefits of all that development and investment in changing hair drying technology are evident - and the result is a user experience that's top of the line (I've even started to wash my hair more frequently now that drying it is no longer a nightmare).

You get smooth, sleek hair that is healthier and needs less secondary heat styling with straighteners, in a very beautiful package. But that privilge comes at a price.

Is it worth it? Having gotten up close and personal with the Supersonic, I would argue that yes, it is - if your hair is soemthing you care about and are happy to make an investment in. Perfection may come at a price, but the results are simply unlike anything else.